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Should you launch your company

Recently this question became a somehow often discussed topic among my social contacts at work. We started talking about what should a new founded company do, what it purpose should be, what the mind of its founders should be worried about. Would it be money, or changing the world? Should it be a service or a product? Should the revenue be reinvested or not and so on and so forth.

What’s your own reason and plan to launch a company?

After all there’s lots of different reasons to start a company and of course some are more valid than others. Yet it should be your own decision. I am strongly opposing to the affirmation of the thesis that your only goal with your startup company should be “to change the world” no matter what. Well, I maybe got too emotional about a recent post I’ve read. It says: The Only Good Reason to Launch a Company. If you bother to read it, you will find the author swearing in the cause of changing the world and demonizing all the other reasons and possibilities. Frankly, I don’t like that. Why? There’s lots of business which did not “changed the worlds” yet they are successful ventures, making lots of people happy (their customers, their workers and so on) as well as they are profiting well.Should those business seize to exist? Or should people never try to run one as well?

What’s your excuse to go forward with desire and motivation?

As stating the “change the world” goal the author of the upper-linked post seems to try to convince himself in the reason of going on. I shall not question his strong sense though. My point is that as he turns out to be the founder of EverNote (which I like and use) he didn’t change the world so much. What is so “world changing” in one (over-simplified I would say) tool for taking notes? Recently I stumbled upon the Wunderlist and it definitely is times better, more useful and intuitive. Whatever.

Finally my point is that – I guess you should do your business and be ready to work lots and lots of hours for it in order to accomplish your goal for creating it – whatever it is. If you succeed in making at least a dozen people happy that is well enough. If your business succeeds to change your world it still counts as changing the world (for the better of course).

2 thoughts on “Should you launch your company”

Show me one company that is profitable, makes workers or customers happy and did not change the rules of the business, and didn’t improve at least the local conditions. Frankly, most profitable business do not make their customer happy – you are customer of any telecom in Bulgaria because you have to, not because those bastards make you happy – and the fact that they are profitable is not the goal of the business – the goal is always to make an improvement. You may fail, you may not change the world, but if you are making business for the sake of the money, you are going to be one of those bastards that no one would remember. Have been Microsoft or Apple or Google or Facebook founded to make billions? Or to change something? To invent the future? Money are always consequence.

Maxim, re the question whether Facebook, Apple or any other of the big companies started as a business venture is frankly yes AND no. The creative people will always want to change the world and the business people will always try and make a profit out of it. In fact, in all cases there have been both sides. Most recent global success was Facebook – started by Mark Zuckerberg BUT backed by an investor providing the financial support for their servers. Because he saw a potential profit. And Zuckerberg simply wanted to make something “cool”, which did change the world after all. Creativity and business will always go hand in hand.